Attorney Trey Rogers, left, presents his case to Dick Monfort, right, chairman of the Colorado Economic Development Commission, and other members at the Coors Field executive offices In July regarding the proposed Aurora Gaylord hotel project. (Andy Cross, The Denver Post)

By Don MarosticaGuest Commentary

For economic development to work, the public investment must result in a rising tide that lifts all boats.

As a legislator, I voted in 2009 for the Regional Tourism Act. I continue to believe that Colorado should make targeted tourism investments to attract new visitors, strengthen local economies, and promote the entire state.
When I served as the director of the state’s economic development office, I worked with Aurora on its early effort to attract the interest of the Gaylord hotel organization.

But now, as a private citizen, and with the benefit of information that has come to light about the proposed project, I have serious concerns that the 1,500-room facility has taken our RTA strategy way off course.
The General Assembly’s intent in passing the RTA was to accelerate unique projects that attract new out-of-state tourists, not to subsidize projects that only benefit the host community.

At the time, concepts for RTA-funding included a NASCAR-type racing facility or potentially rebuilding the National Western Complex for a year-round facility to host the Stock Show. The Pueblo region applied for and won RTA funding for their Riverwalk Entertainment District, and rightfully so. Pueblo will expand their convention center and add new destination attractions. Visitors will stay in Pueblo’s hotels, eat and shop in local establishments, and generate state and local taxes.

Colorado Springs has proposed a combination of four unique projects for RTA funding: a downtown baseball stadium and event center, an Olympic museum, a sports medicine facility at CU-Colorado Springs, and a visitor center at the Air Force Academy. Whether the Economic Development Commission will award RTA incentives to those projects remains to be seen, but that mix of projects appears to be aligned with the economic development goals of the tourism act.

The Gaylord project would be unique in Colorado, but for all the wrong reasons. The 1,500-room hotel is now materially changed from the original Gaylord proposal, but it would still be one of the largest convention hotels outside of Las Vegas. Certainly, it would attract new out-of-state visitors.

But Gaylord’s on-site shops, restaurants and entertainment options will give visitors little reason to leave and spend their dollars off-site. It would be $50-plus in cab fares just to get to shopping districts in Aurora and other far-flung attractions in downtown Denver, Boulder or the south metro area.

Gaylord’s isolated location makes it the wrong project for spinoff economic development in Aurora or the region. Ironically, that isolation is exactly what makes it a perfect location for Gaylord. A quick Internet search about Gaylord-style resorts reveals a pattern. Phrases like “held hostage,” “felt captive,” and “barely knew what town I was in” are pretty much the norm.

Local communities make decisions to incentivize businesses that fit their economic and community goals. Those decisions take many shapes and sizes: IKEAs and Cabelas stores, revitalizing outdated shopping malls, and targeting employers to relocate to their communities. Aurora officials have agreed to rebate their local sales and lodger’s taxes generated on-site back to the hotel developer for 30 years.

But the bar must be set much higher when it comes to state tax incentives for tourism developments. I believe that the incentives must be applied to projects that have a truly regional impact and “lift the economic boats” in the host region, without doing harm to existing tourism businesses. And the economic benefits must make a substantial difference in all corners of the state, from Durango to Dacono, Grand Junction to Lamar.

Aurora’s project is likely only to promote Gaylord, and siphon revenues from regional communities and the state of Colorado. That violates the spirit of the RTA, and I am disappointed that the Economic Development Commission won’t take a second look at the $80 million in handouts they awarded to a project with such limited benefits to Colorado.

Don Marostica is a former state legislator and former executive director of the Colorado Office of Economic Development and International Trade.

Comments Off on Gaylord project misses the mark, according to Colorado’s Regional Tourism Act

Vincent Carroll is The Denver Post's editorial page editor. He has been writing commentary on politics and public policy in Colorado since 1982 and was originally with the Rocky Mountain News, where he was also editor of the editorial pages until that newspaper gave up the ghost in 2009.

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